But when the doctors asked for the plane’s medical kit, they were appalled at its contents–allergy drugs, nitroglycerine, some syringes, a stethoscope, a few other items. The available equipment “was worse than what a patient would find in the Third World,” said Dr. Martin Leon, a senior cardiologist at New York’s Lenox Hill hospital. The surgeons couldn’t do much, and the plane, Continental Flight 320, had to land in Denver, where the man was rushed to a hospital.
Leon was so frustrated by the experience that he went public last week, saying he was shocked that the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t require more extensive medical equipment, and doesn’t mandate CPR and other training for crew members. And he urged that defibrillators be on board to determine if a patient’s heart is beating and administer shocks when appropriate. Continental says it’s in the process of upgrading its medical equipment and training its crew, and points out that the patient on Flight 320, who survived, turned out to be having a seizure, not a heart attack, so a defibrillator wouldn’t have done any good.
But both the government and the airlines have begun to focus on the problem of inflight medical emergencies. The FAA estimates that an average of one person a week dies while aboard a U.S. airliner, and admits that regulations for medical kits aboard U.S. airlines haven’t been updated in 14 years. Dr. Jon Jordan, the FAA’s chief medical officer, told NEWSWEEK that a decision to issue new regulations is still at least two months away. But some airlines are preparing anyway: two years ago American Airlines became the first U.S. carrier to install defibrillators on all 700 of its planes. American has also trained all of its 20,000 flight attendants on how to use the defibrillators, as well as administer CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. American has saved at least 10 passengers’ lives since it first started installing the new equipment in 1997, according to airline spokesman John Hotard. Delta, US Airways and Alaska Airlines have also installed defibrillators aboard their planes. But other airlines are not as far along (chart). And international carriers have an additional problem: a pilot can’t very well make an emergency landing when the plane’s over the middle of the ocean, so medical equipment and training is all the more important. Especially if you don’t happen to be on a plane full of eminent cardiologists.
